Friday, February 5, 2010

Before I get to my Flashback, I have to take a minute to thank you guys, for the overwhelming support that you wrote out for me, in both comments and emails, yesterday on my post about accepting my little bean. I admit, I was scared to hit publish, knowing that it would let everyone see a different side of me that I often keep hidden, but after I did I could almost instantly feel the dark cloud above my head slowly start to lift. It might take me awhile, but I'm going to try and email you all back individually (so if you didn't leave an email, or you don't have one available on your blog or blogger profile, would you mind hoping back into the comment section of yesterday's post and leaving it for me?). Again, thank you guys. You've all helped me more than you probably know.

But now lets get to our Flashback'ing!

...Can you guess which one is me? Don't cheat and look at the impossible to read caption below either.

Did you guess top row, third from the left, purple ruffle dress? *Ding ding ding!*

If you're wondering why I'm wearing a semi formal dress, and why nobody else is- well, that's a good question. I remember leaving the house that morning, excited for class pictures. I remember wearing my "nice" shoes to go with my nice outfit, I think it had been raining (I grew up in Washington, when was it not raining), and I had argued with my mom about my feet getting wet. I remember wearing a less than matching coat over my puffy dress, thinking that it wouldn't matter, because once I got to school I'd just take the coat off. Simple solution, right? Little did I know, I would be the only person dressing up, and I'd want to hide behind that coat until the bell rang at 3:00 that afternoon.

I was tall for my age, so I was always put in the back rows for pictures, right up until I graduated. Christopher still comments on how tall I am, when it catches him off guard, but I'm actually not. I'm certainly not short, but I don't think my height is far from average. I'm 5'8. Christopher is 6'2. Because of those stats combined, Eleanore will probably be 8 feet tall. Poor girl.

My family and I had moved to Woodland the year before, in the middle of the school year. I had been the new girl. It wasn't as glamorous as I had hoped for. And then this year, came another new girl. Her name was Melanie, and we became best friends. Shes the shorty standing directly under the teacher. Kinda cute, huh? Our parents became close friends too, living on the same side of the river, so we spent a lot of time together. After school, weekends, basically every minute of every day. Melanie had an older brother, who I had a crush on off and on for years, but lost interest in once middle school hit. Maybe it wasn't even a crush, it was more of a fascination. I'm an only child, I had never spent much time around boys, and being around him made everything seem different. Sometime towards the end of the 2nd grade, Melanie and her brother left. I remember crying in my classroom for an en entire day. Melanie's mom had pulled them out of class, and sent them to live with her Grandparents for the rest of the school year, and I think the entire summer. I'm not clear on the details of what happened, but Melanie returned in time for us to start the 3rd grade together. Thank god, because I was lost without her.

We're not friends anymore. I don't remember when exactly it was that we drifted apart. I think she left Woodland to go to a private school sometime around the 5th grade, and that's probably where our friendship fell silent. Her new best friend was her neighbor, a gorgeous little girl that I had never liked (I was jealous, obviously), and because we never saw each other anymore, that was the end of the road for us.

I still remember details about ever single person in that picture, a few of them I've kept in touch with through Facebook(I'm totally going to upload this and tag them when I'm done here). Second grade was good for me. Kids hadn't yet learned how to be mean, homework was still learning how to read and five minus three, and I never had to worry about anything more serious than my nice shoes getting wet, or being the only one dressed up on picture day. The second grade was kind of perfect.

**************************************

Want to Flashback with us? You can stick with this weeks theme, dig up an old school portrait, or if you don't have one or just can't find it, you can use any old picture- from a year ago, from ten years ago, whatever you've got. Upload it to your blog, your Facebook, a twitpic, Flickr... anywhere is fine. Make sure to write a little bit about it, because I believe that every picture has a story, even if you can't remember it and have to completely make it up, haha.

Make sure you either grab the flashback button from the bottom of my blog (wayyy down below all of the posts) to center somewhere in your flashback, or just type out a link that will bring people back here, so that they can find more flashbacks, and hopefully get an itch to play along!

Next weeks theme, if you choose to participate (totally optional), is going to be Valentines Day, of course. I don't have a single picture from Valentines Day, so I'm going to have to dig up something with either hearts or roses in it. We'll make it work, won't we?

Alright, that's it folks, link up, have fun! Can't wait to to check out everyones posts!

15
comments:

What a memory you have!! I totally picked you out and think you look cute in that dress. I bet there were other girls who wished they dressed up, too. I moved in the middle of 3rd grade and remember being the "new girl".

I can totally understand about being the new girl in school. I went to a different school that was just outside of town and like before I was still that akward, tall girl that was way too shy to approach people. I soon got over that, but was still the tallest kid in school for a while. I was a lot taller than my brother for 3 or 4 years and he's 2 years older than me. Now I'm around 5'10" and he's 6'2" or 6'3".

I remember how dressing up on the first day of school was a big deal. Everyone did it up through third grade, then in 4th grade apparently everything changed ... but I didn't get the memo. I was ten years-old and awkward! Your flashback reminded me of that horrible day! But, we both survived! [:

Aw, I have memories like that. Dressing up in a fancy outfit on my birthday and feeling SO great about it, only to get to school and feel so out of place. :( doesn't feel great, but certainly molds us into the cooler people we are now!

I have a lot of memories from way back, too. I posted a class picture from Kindergarten and I'm still in contact with 8 of the 23 people from my class. That is quite a bit considering. You were brave to be "the new girl", I stayed in the same school district all through out my school years. What a great picture! Isn't it wonderful that we have these cherished pieces of time to remind us THOSE years.